PRESS: Russian industrialists against quotas on greenhouse gases

MOSCOW, Dec 23 (PRIME) -- The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs has suggested abandoning quotas on emissions of greenhouse gases and payments for exceeding them, Vedomosti business daily reported on Thursday quoting a letter of the union’s Head Alexander Shokhin to presidential aide Larisa Brycheva.

On Tuesday, the parliament’s lower chamber State Duma approved in the first out of the three mandatory readings a bill on a pilot regime of the greenhouse gases emission restriction. The Sakhalin Region was chosen as the pilot region, and the experiment may be spread on other regions later.

The bill says that companies should report on their emissions of greenhouse gases. The government will introduce quotas, and the companies will have to pay for exceeding them. The bill also encompasses creation of a regional market of carbon credits and units for exceeding the quotas.

Vedomosti said that the union had suggested rejecting the quotas and the excess payments fully. The union wants the government to keep the experiment within the Sakhalin Region until it receives objectively positive results. The experiment may lead to a 40–60% increase of energy prices and the business may need tax benefits, Shokhin said.

The Sakhalin Region already has a very low difference between emission and absorption of greenhouse gases, but it will be almost impossible for the other regions to achieve carbon neutrality without a significant increase of the financial burden of businesses. High emissions in one region may be compensated by high absorption in another region, but the emission quotas may reduce export competitiveness of companies in the pilot regions and hurt their investment programs. Companies may even withdraw from the pilot regions to the regions without emission quotas, Shokhin said.

A State Duma’s environmental committee representative told Vedomosti that it would take into account the suggestions while preparing for the second reading. A Deputy Economic Development Minister Ilya Torosov’s representative told the daily that the ministry had considered the suggestions and provided comment on why the union’s position could not be taken into account, as the emissions quotas and excess payments are the key parts of the experiment.

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